"Bruce Lane" <kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com> wrote:
I had an 88170 at one time. They're pretty much
the same as
the 7980. It will automatically sense the density of the tape
you load, and will lock itself to said density, and it should
certainly be able to handle all three of the standards (800,
1600, 6250).
It's less than certain. The supported densities are determined by the
installed board set. There are many 88780s out there that only do
1600 and 6250. Fewer that do 800 too. I have yet to run across one
that only does 1600 but it's a possible configuration; HP sold that
(w/HP-IB interface) as the 7979A.
For 7980s, 1600 and 6250 are standard and 800 is an option. 7980A is
HP-IB, 7980S is SCSI (single-ended). There's also an "XC" option
which does in-the-drive compression on 6250BPI tapes; I think this
option does not coexist with the 800BPI option.
BTW, a couple months ago Sun had a version of their service manual
for the 88780 up at:
http://sunsolve.sun.com/data/800/800-3447/pdf/doc.pdf
It's missing the figures though.
Bear in mind that you'll need some fairly
specialized (and
expensive -- in the $300 region) software if you want to use
that drive on any sort of PC.
Last time I noticed, FreeBSD and Linux were able to make use of a SCSI
interface with an attached 88780.
-Frank McConnell